Chapter Thirty-Five
Vasudha Patil
Yiga Choeling Monastery
Ghoom, West Bengal
February 1990
Sureva Bhalekar
c/o Mrs. Ashatai Athavale
215 Laxmi Nivas
10th Lane Prabhat Rd., Pune
Dear Suru,
It has been seven years since I’ve heard from you. Everyone wants me to believe that you sold out our love and took a deal from Appa to pay for your education in New York in return for forgetting me. At first this broke me. But somewhere in my heart I’ve always known that they were lying. They’ve only ever lied to us. When they told us they loved us, when they told us they were taking care of us. They were only ever interested in keeping the world exactly as it is. Safe only for them.
They cheated us, Suru. I don’t know what they told you, but they worked together to tear us apart. Your aie, my parents, my dada, all of them. They wanted us to believe that we had betrayed each other.
When your aie came to visit me, I told her everything. I told her how they forced me to marry Namdeo, how my appa paid him millions of rupees, how they threatened to put you in jail for stealing the ring and hurt you if I didn’t consent to the marriage. They would’ve had you thrown out of college and caused you to lose your chance of going to America. Taken away your life. I was so scared I married him, I let him touch me, violate me. All the while hoping a way out would show up.
When your aie came to see me, I thought my escape had come. I was obviously wrong. Something tells me your aie never told you anything I told her. I should have known because she tried to convince me that I was lucky that Appa had found me a way to save myself from sin and given me a chance at repentance. When I wouldn’t listen, she begged me to save you by letting you go, because Appa had threatened to kill you if you didn’t forget about me.
When I told her I couldn’t, when I begged her to help us, she took your letters from me, saying it was the only way to convince you that she’d seen me and that I was waiting for you. I made Appa give me those letters back when I agreed to marry that man. I had that bit of leverage, and I used it to get your words back. Then I gave away the one thing of yours I had. You know I remember every word, but I’ve missed touching your beautiful penmanship every single day.
I waited and waited for you to reach out, but at least I knew through Ashatai that you had left for New York. Once I knew you were safe, I ran away from that prison they wanted me to die in and call that death life. I couldn’t let that man touch me again. I knew I wouldn’t survive if I stayed.
You know how powerful Appa is, and Dada will do anything to prove himself a worthy successor. Namdeo’s family will also use any means necessary to keep their name unsullied. So I ran from them all.
Thanks to Ashatai’s network, I was able to make my way across the country, too far out of the sphere of their influence. Too far to be a threat to their public image. But when I got here, I found out that the worst had happened. I was carrying a child. That poor child, growing inside a body with a broken spirit. I felt nothing but sadness for him. I did not have it in me to feel anything else.
Four years ago to this day, I gave birth to him in the monastery where I’ve lived and worked since then. The doctor assured me she would make sure he had a good home. An American couple was looking for a baby to complete their family. I was told they lived close to New York, so I let them have him. I sent him to New York so at least one little part of me might be close to you. And I gave him our ring. Sometimes I think if I had held on to the ring we would be together. Maybe I invoked a curse by giving it away. But I needed a piece of me to be with him. You’ve always accused me of being fanciful, and I dream of a day when those rings will bring us back together again.
Why is there a cruelty to friendship? All my life I had this need to come first for you. Now I would gladly be standing all the way at the end of your priorities if only I could see you one more time.
I’ve often wondered if the life you gained when we lost each other was worth it. I suspect there is no easy answer to that. I know you’ve done amazing things already and you will do more. There are too many fatal diseases that are only fatal because you haven’t found a way to stop them yet. I can see it already. Work you’ll do. Machines you’ll create to break down cells that kill us. Magic you’ll make to heal the pieces that make our bodies breathe and hurt and bleed.
I can see the trance in your eyes as you dig and push and inhale entire libraries so you can move something into place. The nights you stay up, the days you forget to eat. That’s the life I imagine you living. I hope there’s someone there telling you how beautiful you are, someone to cherish the force of nature you are, someone to scold you to rest. Another jealous and brutal piece of me wishes it’s me still, who sits on your shoulder, who makes you care for yourself because you can’t bear to upset me.
I am there, you know. On your shoulder. As you are on mine.
If there is happiness in this world it is knowing that we have that forever.
When you live in a monastery (isn’t it ironic how I ended up in one of the coldest parts of India when I hated the cold so very much) you get to think a lot about what happiness is. Even after everything, I do believe that our families who separated us did want us to be happy. They just couldn’t define happiness as anything outside of what they were taught to define as normal. I’ve questioned almost everything in my life. I’ve questioned the intentions and character of every person I’ve ever met. Including yours and mine. I’ve hated that you left me. But I’ve never questioned that our love was right, that it was powerful, that it made me feel my own humanity more than a single other thing I’ve ever experienced.
If you are reading this letter then I hope it follows that the only thing I’ve ever desired in this lifetime is about to come true. I hope that it isn’t after our entire lives have gone by. Even if it is, I’ll take it because I will not leave this earth without seeing you again, Suru. My soul cannot carry the burden of so much unfulfilled wanting to the next life.
Waiting for you.
Always only yours,
Vasu